MySQL CONCAT() Function with Examples

How to Use the MySQL CONCAT() Function

In this tutorial, you'll learn to use the MySQL CONCAT() function. CONCAT() is a function to add two or more expressions together.

MySQL CONCAT() Syntax

CONCAT(expression1, expression2,..., expressionN)

Remarks

The first expression is required
CONCAT returns NULL if any expression NULL

Examples

Combining Several Strings

The following illustrates an example of using CONCAT() to combine several strings:

SELECT CONCAT("I ", "want ", "to visit ", "United State") AS Combined_String;

The statement returns:

I want to visit United State.

Combining Several Strings with NULL

The following statement returns NULL since the 3rd argument is a NULL value:

SELECT CONCAT("I ", "Like playing football", NULL);

More Examples

Below is the demo orders table:

order_id	order_number	customer_code	customer_name	country	amount
1	#ORD_00001	#CID_20001	Josh Warner	Japan	1980.00
2	#ORD_00002	#CID_20002	Lisa Ramsey	United State	1350.50
3	#ORD_00003	#CID_20001	Josh Warner	Japan	1230.40
4	#ORD_00004	#CID_20001	Josh Warner	Japan	1200.00
5	#ORD_00005	#CID_20002	Lisa Ramsey	United State	3450.00
6	#ORD_00006	#CID_20003	Charles Harmon	United State	3470.50
7	#ORD_00007	#CID_20004	Francis Lewis	Germany	1230.80
8	#ORD_00008	#CID_20005	William Barnett	China	1998.80

You can use the SUM() function to sum the values, then combine with other strings together.

Here is an example:

SELECT CONCAT("The total amount is $", SUM(o.amount), ".") AS Result
FROM orders o;

The returned value is as follows:

Result
The total amount is $15911.00.

Also, you can use SUM() and GROUP BY with the CONCAT() function.

Here is an example:

SELECT CONCAT("The total amount ", "ordered by ", o.customer_name, " is $", SUM(o.amount), ".") AS Result
FROM orders o GROUP BY o.customer_name;

The returned result set is as follows:

Result
The total amount ordered by Charles Harmon is $3470.50.
The total amount ordered by Francis Lewis is $1230.80.
The total amount ordered by Josh Warner is $4410.40.
The total amount ordered by Lisa Ramsey is $4800.50.
The total amount ordered by William Barnett is $1998.80.

In this tutorial, you’ve learned how to use the MySQL CONCAT() function. You can use CONCAT() to combine two or more strings.